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Late change in the lineup: Julie Hertzog of Pacer and the governor's anti-bullying task force, is a scratch, because of a family commitment. Might have another person or two who are involved in the issue join us.
Just finished a lengthy handout that we'll provide...join us in the Rocket Center at JM, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. tonight.
The Dodge County Independent has good coverage of the K-M School Board meeting May 28, and school officials' presentations on what's being done regarding bullying. Hats off to editor and publisher Randy Carlsen for the exhaustive coverage...not posted on the website yet, but check back.
Also note the lengthy guest column from K-M Superintendent Mark Matuska. Here are the key lines:
Yet, one of the biggest changes we are going to make in school might make the most significant impact. We are going to start doing a better job of tracking kids who are being targeted...instead of just monitoring those who instigate poor behavior, Kasson-Mantorville Schools are going to start tracking students who are targeted by other children. We anticipate that it may often be multiple individuals at different times who are finding one or more students to target.
All of our staff will be reporting incidents, even if they handled them personally...We need to help those students who are not helping themselves. We will make this a priority for next year in every building at Kasson-Mantorville.
Wonder what Rochester schools do along these lines? Me, too.
A nicely typed, though cryptic, unsigned letter:
It is unfortunate that the Star Tribune can grab the story seven miles north of Rochester.
I would have thought that the Back Roads would lead to Potsdam and Anna Stoehr.
Please don't reprint the Star Tribune story because than (sic) more readers will ask about the Back Roads.
The anonymous author is referring to a story that ran in the Strib on May 25, about 111-year-old Anna Stoehr. The story notes that Anna still reads the Post-Bulletin, though she needs a magnifying glass to do it. Hope that's not a reflection on our type size.
Anyway -- what the letter writer didn't realize is that we had the story on Feb. 17:
Elgin woman is oldest verified Minnesotan
By Sandy Hadler
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
ELGIN — One hundred and eleven-year-old Anna Stoehr was amazed to learn that she is 45th on the validated list of the oldest living people in the world. Her response, “Oh, my gosh!”
Several years ago she said she was 62nd from the top.
Stoehr, who lives in rural Elgin near Potsdam, was adamant that she doesn’t want to live as long as Besse Cooper, an American who was born on Aug. 26, 1896, and, at 115, is the oldest living woman in the world.
“I wouldn’t want to be here that long," Stoehr said. "That’s four more years! By that time I won’t even be able to get around.”
That’s not to say she doesn’t love living.
“Everything is good in my life. I have nothing to complain about," she said. "I don’t think my life could have been better.”
When asked how it feels to be 111, she responded, “The same as when I was 99.”
Stoehr was born on Oct. 15, 1900, in Iowa to German immigrant parents Bertha and Carl Rott (pronounced rut). Her longevity doesn’t appear to have come from genetics since her mother died in her early 80s and her father died when he was 89.
Stoehr and her husband, Ernest, bought the farm where she now lives in 1936. They milked cows and she raised chickens. He died in 1997.
“I’ve lived on a farm my whole life,” she said. “But I’m not farming now. I just live here. My grandsons own the land.”
The couple raised five children, and Stoehr has outlived two of them, both of whom died in June 2011. Her youngest daughter, Carolyn, died of cancer, and her son Marvin died suddenly. She cherishes her three remaining children, Harlan Stoehr, Lois Neighbors and Dorothy Wood.
Stoehr is remarkably active for her age. She has frequent visitors and plays cards with her nephew Wayne Siem of Mazeppa and other family members who like to engage her in a competitive game of 500. She particularly loves Scrabble, which she plays often with Lois, who, since becoming a widow several years ago, spends winters with her mother.
Stoehr said she used to crochet, quilt and read, but failing eyesight has made it impossible for her to pursue those pastimes. She does not like to watch TV. But she still bakes bread.
“It beats the bread that you buy,” she said. And she’s proud of the fact that her daughters also bake their own bread.
Stoehr has no advice about why she has lived to be 111.
“For goodness sake, I don’t have an answer to a question like that. I did nothing," she said. "And it’s not luck. It’s all in the good Lord’s hands.”
She did, however, offer some general advice.
“All you need in life is a place to stay and food," she said. "The rest are gifts from God that you can do without.”
There are 71 people on the validated living supercentenarians list who range in age from 110 to 115 years old. Twenty-five of those people are from Japan, 18 from the U.S., 8 from France, 7 from the United Kingdom, 6 from Italy, and one each from Barbados, Belgium, Austria, Australia, Spain and Germany. It is estimated that there are 300-450 living supercentenarians, but the ages of all except the 71 validated people has not been verified by the Gerontology Research Group.
The anonymous letter writer might want to read the paper as carefully as Anna apparently does.
What I chatted up on KTTC a few minutes ago...pardon the lack of punctuation:
good morning -- caught more than our fair share of fish in northern wisconsin, didn't get hailed on or rained out --
on the front page, in addition to lots of coverage of memorial day observances around the area, we'll have a preview of the DFL state convention coming up this weekend in rochester -- a major political event, obviously, as well as a money maker for the community
we'll have the monthly Four Stars restaurant column, which this month is a shout-out to four restaurants that have awesome cake -- it goes without saying that Bunnie Powers' coconut cake at the Canadian Honker is one of the four but who gets the other three spots? you'll have to check it out...
and tonight at 6:30 p.m., we'll have a Post-Bulletin Dialogues community meeting on bullying -- we'll meet at John Marshall High School because we'reexpected a bigger crowd than usual -- we have a terrific panel of experts and i'll be there to lead the discussion, really important issue in our schools and for our young people, we'll be zeroing in on bullying at our Dialogues meetings all summer, taking it layer and layer and pushing for action.
New to our panel list for Tuesday's Dialogues meeting: Julie Hertzog, director of Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center. She'll be representing the Pacer center but also is co-chair of Gov. Dayton’s task force on bullying.
Today's column, to be repackaged over the next few days to promote the Dialogues event on Tuesday:
Have you ever been bullied? Not just now and then, but in a persistent, destructive way that went on for weeks, months or longer?
Have you ever bullied someone?
What did it feel like? How did you get over it, as a victim or as someone who bullied? Who helped you? How did it change you?
On Tuesday, we'll have a Post-Bulletin Dialogues community meeting about bullying -- what it is, how it's different and more destructive now, and what's being done, especially in our schools, to deal with it.
The Dialogues meeting will be at John Marshall High School and begins at 6:30 p.m. Note the change of location -- the monthly Dialogues meetings usually are at the Rochester Public Library, but with a larger-than-usual crowd expected, this one will be in the Rocket Center at JM.
The informal, 90-minute community forum will give you a chance to ask questions of people who know what bullying is about, how aggressive behavior and harassment at school has changed in the era of Internet, cellphones and social media, and what can be done to stop it.
Joining me at the head table will be Danielle Borgerson-Nesvold of the Austin-based organization Community Against Bullying; Vangie Castro, youth programs education manager for the Diversity Council and a member of the governor's task force; Rep. Debra Hilstrom of Brooklyn Center, a legislative leader on bullying and state law; and a few others, hopefully including a student who's involved in anti-bullying programs in Austin.
Danielle, of Community Against Bullying, will have information, wrist bands and other materials, and others are welcome to provide information as well. I'll have a handout with anti-buillying resources, web addresses and contact names and numbers for people who can help.
As always at our Dialogues meetings, we go light on speeches and spend most of the time taking questions and comments from the audience. There's never a shortage of questions, and on this topic, I can't imagine there'll be a shortage of comments.
I'll keep the focus on bullying at our Dialogues meeting all summer, and the program in late June will deal with the emotional and psychological toll that's taken by aggressive bullying -- I prefer the term harassment, especially as it often occurs in teen years. I'll announce the date and place of that program at Tuesday's meeting.
On Tuesday, the focus will be on defining what bullying is, how prevalent it is, and what's happening at the state level as well as in area schools to deal with it.
If you have questions or comments and you can't join us at JM on Tuesday, send me a note and I'll bring it with me to the meeting. If you have a personal story to tell about being bullied, either in the past or currently, share that in whatever detail you choose and we'll get your story out.
I've received more than a dozen harrowing stories from readers about their experience with bullying and I'll be posting those on my blog, Furst Draft.
As Gary Kadansky, the Christian youth leader and Rochester radio personality, said at an event in Kasson this week, there'll always be some bullying. There'll always be people who will tease and gossip and harass others, whether in middle school or beyond. But we can help those who are being harassed, immediately -- right now. We can respond to it immediately and make it stop.
We can speak up, first of all.
Teenagers can speak up for themselves and their friends. They can tell people they trust, and they have to believe that something will be done. Teens have to believe that their concerns won't be ignored or forgotten, that adults in charge are paying attention and will respond to bullying. Adults can provide real-world information, counseling and hope. We can expect true accountability and consequences when it comes to keeping our children safe and free from emotional as well as physical harm in schools.
That's not asking too much.
Bullying isn't just the pushing and gossiping you see in comic strips and sitcoms. It can be intensely personal and destructive, on social media and cellphones, on and off the school grounds -- and especially for young people at an incredibly vulnerable time in their lives.
We need to deal with it. Join us on Tuesday at JM as we talk more about how to make that happen.
Here's a note to the Answer Man from a reader, regarding yesterday's column:
It's not just you, there are others of us who wonder why a city of 107,000 with very low unemployment rate can not find the funds to support 4th of July fireworks. Makes you wonder how hard they tried. Thanks for posing the question. I hope there are many others that fell like us.
Since I believe my notes are typo-free (except for punctuation...), here's what I teased on TV a short time ago:
good morning -- glad it's hump day, but you know, during holiday weeks like this, hump day just means you're running out of time to get the work done -- among the chores on our list is to make sure we have all the memorial day observances in the paper -- we'll make a downpayment on that today -- we have a few dozen events listed in today's paper and we'll have an updated, hopefully complete list in on saturday
the jobless rate in olmsted county dropped to 4.3 percent in april, the lowest in more than three years -- goodhue, mower and winona counties also reported their lowest levels in more than three years -- the overall rate in the region is 4.8 percent, compared with 5.2 percent
20 years after joining the rochester police force, sgt. eli umpierre is about to achieve another milestone -- she'll become the department's first female lieutenant -- she's promoted on may 31, one of nine on the force, and it's the third highest rank in the dept. -- congratulations to her
and on the front page, we'll have a remembrance of a guy a lot of you may have seen over the years, especially if you travel on center street -- he'd sit in a folding chair in front of his house at 11th avenue northeast and center and just have a pleasant wave for passersby -- he was know to friends at johnny, the can man -- johnny passed away last week, we'll tell you his story today.
Today's Answer Man column already yielded this email comment from a guy named Jon C. Thanks for passing it along, A-Man.
Dear Answer Man –
I worked for Halliburton Energy Services in Rock Springs, WY in a business development position. Before entering the sales force, I was required to spend 18 months in the field on the rigs to gain experience and respect of my fellow co-workers and the company men who represent the gas and oil company leasing the land where the drilling is taking place. On many occasions I worked over 140 hours in a single week on certain jobs. In some instances you arrive on site and the crew from another company had to finish their work before you could start your job, sometimes they would run into trouble and you were left to sleep, eat, read or twiddle your thumbs in the front seat of a truck until they were finished. Once I spent 3 days and nights in the front seat of a ford f450 waiting to start our work, and then our job would take sometimes upwards of 12 hours. I got paid the second I left the gate of our headquarters until I returned. So our work took a few hours, but I was on site for 3 days which means I just got paid for 72+ hours, plus 2-3 hour drive time back to base. Of course on the way back to base, we had to stop to eat a warm meal, and the drivers of the big rigs couldn’t drive drowsy (company rules) so of course we stopped to nap a few hours after eating, then finally head in. All the while you are getting paid. So the 240 hours in a 2 week period is not unheard of. You also have to take into consideration overtime and per diem. You get paid tremendously well for breakfast, lunch and dinner if you were out in the field. With that said, it is rough work, long hours and very difficult to maintain a personal life or have any family time. I know many people who have left because of the difficulty balancing work and life, but find the money too irresistible to give up so they end up going back.
To the anonymous writer of a letter that I, as well as the publisher, received this week.
I typed it in and was planning to respond but changed my mind. I have thick skin, but the inaccurate and offensive comments made about Rachel Ehmke's death and our coverage are insensitive to others and are only revealing about the author -- and you chose not to identify yourself.
Just guessing, but maybe you called me last week and went down the same path of blaming and name-calling. That anonymous female caller (an adult), in the end, revealed her connection to the Ehmke bullying case, which explained some things.
In any case, the one point I'll address is this:
(By the way, you claim to welcome dialogue and yet you disabled the comment section of the Furst Draft blog. I presume it was so that you could have the final word, end of discussion).
Sincerely,
A concerned citizen
For the record, the comment feature is not disabled. A few months ago, we decided to pre-approve comments because, as always, some people abuse the feature -- abuse the anonymity -- and post comments that are offensive, vulgar, libelous or defamatory.
We do welcome comments, and most are approved quickly. Try me.
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